Red Wine Poached Pear & Custard Tarts

Aren’t these just adorable?

I do love a good red wine poached pear (evidently, as I’ve blogged a recipe using them before!), but when you pair (ba dum tsh!) them with a smooth homemade custard? Yes!

I started with the custard by adding the milk, vanilla pod and almond extract to a large saucepan and bringing to the boil. Once bubbling I removed this from the heat.

In a separate heatproof bowl I beat together the egg yolks and sugar. (There’s only 4 egg yolks in the photo because I actually made half the recipe, but it wasn’t enough so doubled it for the post!)

I then beat in the flour and cornflour.

I poured the hot vanilla-infused milk into the egg mixture, whisking to combine as I poured.

I strained this through a sieve into a clean saucepan, and put this back on a medium heat to thicken.

Once thickened, I poured this into a bowl, pressed some cling film onto the surface of the custard to cover and to stop a skin from forming. I left this to chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

I added a bottle of red wine, sugar, a vanilla pod, cinnamon stick, and 2 star anise to a large saucepan and brought this to the boil to dissolve the sugar.

Once boiling, I reduced this to a simmer and added my peeled pears. I then poured in some boiling water to make sure the pears were covered.

I let this bubble away and poach for 30minutes until the pears had softened. (You may want to place a piece of foil on the surface of the liquid to make sure the pears are fully submerged.)

I then left the pears to cool in the poaching liquid to deepen in colour.

For the sweet crust pastry, I placed the flour, ground almonds, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mixed together.

I then added the egg yolks and brought this together with my hands to a soft sticky dough. I turned this out onto a lightly floured surface and clumped together into a circle, wrapped in cling film and chilled in the fridge for 30 minutes.

(I realise I forgot to take photo’s of the rest… oops!)

I rolled out the chilled pastry to ½cm thickness and cut out circles wider than my mini tart tins. I lay the dough circles into the greased mini tart tins, pressed in the edges, then pricked the base with a fork. I placed a piece of greaseproof paper and baking beans into each tart and baked these for 15minutes at 200°C, then for a further 5 mins without baking beans.

I left these to cool completely before spooning in some custard, and placing a poached pear on top. (For the twisted pears, I sliced downwards going around the pear and twisted gently to fan out.)